Health buzz: Being 'skinny fat' is more fatal than being fat

Call it a paunch, a food baby or just a belly – extra fat around your middle doesn't just threaten your pants button or stand between you and washboard abs. It also shortens your life, finds a study published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The study, which analyzed data from 15,184 American adults over a median of 14.3 years, looked at how body mass index (or a height-to-weight ratio) and belly fat (defined by a waist-to-hip ratio) predict mortality. The researchers from the Mayo Clinic and other institutions around the world found that people who weighed a normal amount for their heights but who were obese around their middles were more likely to die ​than people with any other body types. Men with normal BMIs but "central obesity," for example, had twice the mortality risk of men who were overweight or obese according to BMI only.

In other words: Sporting excess fat around your waistline only seems to be more deadly than carrying excess fat all over. That's significant, the authors say, since professional guidelines only recommend measuring patients' waists if they're overweight or obese, and don't recommend measuring waist-to-hip ratio at all. "Our findings suggest that persons with normal-weight central obesity may represent an important target population for lifestyle modification and other preventive strategies," they write in the journal article.

Why might a round middle be so dangerous, despite a healthy-looking physique elsewhere? For one, that type of fat accumulation is associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as less muscle mass in the legs. People with a lot of fat that's better distributed into, say, a pear-shaped figure, on the other hand, tend to have healthier metabolisms, other research has shown. "This may explain the unexpected better survival in overweight or obese persons, even among those who were centrally obese," the authors write.

Click through to read about the 5 food mistakes that won't let you lose weight:

2. Sit down to eat
Don't eat all your meals on the go. Although it's great for time management, it's not great for your digestive system. So take a second to sit down and eat. This will help you digest your food.

Photo credit: Getty

3. Drink lots of water
You have to hydrate! And this doesn't mean two glasses of water a day. Without water, your body will slow it's digestion down, and in turn store more fat around your belly. So make sure you're drinking around eight glasses of water each day.

Photo credit: Getty

4. Eat nuts in moderation
There is a proper way to eat nuts, because they're so high in fat -- and that's in moderation. Also, if you soak them in warm water overnight it will help to neutralize the phytic acid, which can cause irritation to your digestive tract.

Photo credit: Getty

5. Choose the right fat
And speaking of fat, some fats are your friend! Foods that are high in omega-3's help boost your metabolism and give you energy. They keep you fuller for longer, so you won't be reaching for those naughty snacks when that 4 p.m. slump hits.